


Little Love

by Minatu



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Past Lives, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-07
Updated: 2013-12-07
Packaged: 2018-01-03 21:15:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1073130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minatu/pseuds/Minatu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A love that was only going to make him hurt. Levi wanted only to grow old with his little love. Ereri.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Love

_Don't question the wayward souls, son. They'll soon be out of sight._

My eyes snapped opened, and I sat up faster than I could think. Sleep had barely left my limbs, but my fingers shook. My mind screaming for me to start moving, and then I froze. Right before my eyes was a guy in a strange getup. I stared at him, my lips hanging slightly open.

"Huh. The presence disappeared," he commented, more to himself than anything else. I couldn't open my mouth to say a word. I was frozen in shock, my eyes locked onto him. Who was he? Further more, why was he in my room? Then he turned, meeting my gaze. He stared back at me for a long moment before finally opening his mouth to speak.

"Can... Can you see me?" he asked slowly, his almost disinterested look slowly growing into one of minute surprise and curiosity. I licked my lips before slowly nodding my reply. The short man straightened, touching his fingers to his forehead and letting out a loud sigh.

"Well that's just fucking great," he muttered. He glanced at his wrist, his jacket sleeve pulling back naturally to reveal the strange watch he work. It looked like a sundial.

"Who – " I barely began to ask before he lifted his eyes back up to me in an irritable expression.

"Look. I don't have time to deal with this right now, so we're just going to pretend you saw nothing, and go back to fucking sleep, kid," he told me. I blinked back my shock, the words I'd barely begun to string together gone in the wind. I nodded slowly, and he disappeared in a whiz of color. I thought back to what my father had said to me before he'd disappeared. Was that what he was talking about? I'd always assumed he was crazy. I ran a hand through my long, messy brown hair, falling back into the pillows on my bed.

_3:30 A.M._ What an odd time to be awake.

.

I rolled out of bed some hours later that morning, fumbling through my usual morning routine before walking out of the house and meeting Mikasa a few blocks from my house. Mikasa wore the red scarf that I gave her for her birthday when we were about ten years old. It was cold enough for her to start wearing it again. Her hands held onto her backpack straps as she waited in silence, her knees shaking a bit because of the cold.

"Morning," I greeted with a slow wave. She nodded, already turning to begin walking toward school. Armin was going to meet us about halfway like he always did. Mikasa had grown quieter as the years passed on. I never questioned it, but I figured it had something to do with guys suddenly noticing her pretty appearance. My mind slowly wandered to the strange dream I had. Really, I had no idea of how I was even supposed to interpret it. Maybe it was just one of those meaningless dreams that you weren't actually supposed to question.

When Armin joined us, chatter immediately filled the air. The intelligent blonde boy loved to talk. His main interest, however, was the world. He wanted to study foreign cultures and history when he went to college. I, on the other hand, had no idea what I wanted to major in. Luckily, we were only juniors, so I still had some time to pull some answer out of my hat. I stared up at the pale sky, and my eyes caught a strange movement. The same flash of color that I'd seen last night. My feet moved before I even began to think about what I was doing. I ran out into the middle of the street. Car horns blared, tires screeched and then silence.

"You fucking idiot. What were you even thinking?" a voice suddenly broke the silence of my mind. I opened my eyes and I was still there, in the middle of the road. Mikasa was standing on the sidewalk, her mouth open and a broken expression on her face. She was crying. Armin's books were falling from his pale hands. The cars lights were directly in my face. Life had come to an absolute stand still. I turned slowly to meet the same stranger's eyes. He stared at me with a tired expression.

"I thought... I thought is I didn't talk to you this time," he said, running a hand through his hair, "You were supposed to fucking live past this day! If only I hadn't gone to see you yesterday! Goddammit, why do you make my life so damned hard?" He glared into my eyes, but I had no idea what he was talking about.

"Eren. Now I have to try again."

حر

I gazed out the large, pane glass windows at the busy town below. I wondered where my father had disappeared off to all those years ago. My late mother had told me a thousand times that there was nothing we could do about it, but I was  _angry_. He shouldn't have left my mother to fend for herself in the dark void that was society. Even if it had ultimately led to my meeting Mikasa and Armin. Still, I wondered what I was doing in such an upstate building.

Then I remembered,  _Armin_. Armin had received an offer to tour the noteworthy school, Nighton University. So we were all staying in the dorms during the tour. Armin had wanted Mikasa and I to go with him. In fact, I was the only one who didn't have a formal offer from N.U. to visit. I never really bothered when it came to my studies.

I rubbed my eyes, letting out a yawn. Armin was already getting dressed. His blonde hair tied back a little bit to appear more formal and neat. The school was very fancy. I remembered the soft, classical music that had been playing softly when we entered the lobby of the dorms.

"You should probably start getting ready, Eren," Armin said. I let out a low sigh, pushing myself off of the bed that felt like a cloud.

"I don't know how they could expect you to get up with such a comfortable bed," I replied, pulling off the pajama pants that I wore to sleep in. I never wore a shirt when I slept, but it was Fall, so I figured I'd wear pants when I slept. I quickly replaced the soft, comfy pants with my favorite pair of worn jeans. Armin gave me a look, eying my hair. Then he sighed.

"Most of the students they're accepting are prestigious, unlike some people," Armin pointed out, giving me a look. He adjusted his tie slightly before turning to me and running his hands through my messy hair quickly.

"You could at least try to look presentable, since Mikasa and I had to beg for them to even let you enter the school," he sighed. I let him fix my hair, my shoulders slumped a bit. Armin then threw a white, long sleeved dress shirt at me. I held the foreign object in one hand, eying it carefully.

"Do I seriously have to wear this?" I asked, giving Armin an exasperated look.

"Yes," Armin replied, "Unless you want to be stuck in the cold for a day because our ride home isn't until tomorrow." I sighed, pulling on the white shirt, slowly buttoning it up. I always hated buttons. They just seemed to grow smaller as you got bigger. It was hard enough when they were the same size as your fingertips. Armin laughed at me as I fumbled with the shirt.

"You're so incompetent without Mikasa to mother you," he commented. I shot a glare at him.

"Shut up," I growled. Armin just shook his head. Soon enough we were out in the hall with Mikasa. She had curls in her usually straight hair, and I could tell that they were already falling out.

"Eren, why do you still look unhappy? This is going to be fun," Mikasa told me with a tiny smile. I gave her a unamused look.

"I'm not that interested in this college thing," I replied with a shrug. Mikasa sighed, and she shared a look with Armin. As always, they were holding silent conversations that I didn't quite understand. Then a man walked up to us. He was shorter than all three of us, though he could almost gaze eye-to-eye with Armin. He had a perpetual glare on his face, and Mikasa attempted to give me an encouraging smile.

"Armin Arlet and Mikasa Ackerman?" he asked, gazing at my two closest friends. Then his eyes wandered over to me, lingering longer than they did on Mikasa and Armin. Obviously I looked like I didn't belong. The day was already off to a great start.

"That's right," Mikasa answered with a smile, "And that's Eren Yeager... he's just coming along." She tried to smooth over the questions that my being there raised, and Armin had his fingers crossed, hoping that the man wouldn't tell me to go loiter elsewhere.

"Well then. I'm Levi, I'll be showing you kids around until Hanji shows up," he told us. Levi's name struck a chord with me. I immediately recognized it. I didn't understand why, but it brought a lot of murky emotions into me.

_The past is part of the present._

He led us down the hall and out of the dorm complexes. There were several pedestrian paths in the campus, all of them intertwining and leading elsewhere. Levi made gestures to miscellaneous buildings explaining what classes took place there. I noticed how he continued to give me looks, and I wondered if he thought I was going to try something. I admit that I looked like a punk, but that wasn't exactly an option since Mikasa and Armin were already breathing down my neck about the whole visit.

Then a building suddenly exploded, pieces of the roof flying into the air. Mikasa and Armin froze, stunned. I was already hanging back in the group, and my legs simply didn't move as an especially large piece came flying toward me. Out of all of us in the group, Levi was the fastest to move, but he was too late. My last sight was of his panicked expression. Was that why he was always watching me?

حر

Levi's face fell into his hands. Everytime he was born into the world, each time ten years before Eren, he knew that he would watch Eren die. He couldn't stand the agony of it every single time, and it all began a long time ago when he'd fallen in love with Eren, a young prince of the Seshi province. Levi had been just a knight in his royal guard, but their love began to grow.

Levi could remember spending long nights in Eren's chambers with him, stories of his peasant life lulling Eren to sleep. His heart ached to have such closeness with the boy again, but this endless repeat of fate was because of his failure to do his duty and protect Eren from traitors. He'd grown so focused on Eren that he didn't notice that one of the knights, Bosner, was plotting to assassinate Eren. If only Levi had distanced himself from the sixteen year-old prince that he'd fallen in love with enough to save his life.

And this time, Levi had to watch as a titan tore Eren's titan body into pieces while another ripped him out of the safety of his titan body and clamped his jaws down on Eren's fragile, human body. Levi's knives ripped the back of the titan's neck open, but Eren was already lying in the grass, coloring it dark red with his blood.

"Eren!" he gasped. Eren gave Levi a smile.

"It's okay, Levi..." Eren told him, but never finished the sentence, and finally Levi wept. He could no longer swear that he would save Eren. He could no longer believe that he was allowed to love and protect the innocent boy because humanity was going to lose. They would lose the battle and disappear, and there would be no second chances. So when Levi recollected himself, he could only swear to make sure that humanity won the battle so that he could try again to live with Eren, his little love.

**Author's Note:**

> Eren is Levi's painful little love. It's sad but nice, I think.
> 
> حر is Arabic for "free". I thought it went well with the theme here.
> 
> ~Minatu-chan


End file.
